And then from time to time she was suddenly brought up short against the sharply defined limits of Sylvia's comprehension, and the jarring candour of Sylvia's ruthlessly unalterable condemnations.
Grown-up people always told one that in this world there was no such thing as a perfect friendship. Lily obediently generalized thus, and strove for philosophy in defiance of a hidden, quite unsupported certainty, in the depths of her own mind, that the generalization was a false one.
It was not until her final half year at Bridgecrap that Lily came under the direct personal influence of the headmistress.
Miss Melody was fifty-seven, she had given up her life to the work of education, and she still brought to it the enthusiasm of a pioneer. Her solitary weakness was the not altogether uncommon one of an unshakable belief in her own infallibility.
"You may have a difficult time in front of you, childie," she said to Lily very kindly. "A motherless girl is very often at a great disadvantage. I was motherless myself before I was twenty."
She had a rounded mellow voice and always articulated her words with great deliberation and distinctness. "And the dear little brother! Is that a big responsibility, Lily?"
"Kenneth will be going to school almost at once," said Lily evasively.
She would like to have replied, as Miss Melody obviously expected her to do, with an admission of her own perplexities as regarded her relations to Kenneth, but she knew very well that no responsibility would really be hers. Nothing vital bound her to Kenneth as she had been bound to Vonnie, and the immense gulf of her ten years' seniority had inspired in her no maternal solicitude towards her independent little brother.
"He will be nearly eight when I leave here, and I know my father means him to go to school when he's eight," said Lily.
"Child, you're not going to be a shirker, are you? Lily, Lily, isn't that the weak place? Ah, I thought so. I thought so. Afraid of responsibility, aren't you?"